(CNN 14 Sept 2020) Eight people were arrested during protests in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on Monday, a day after a Lancaster police officer shot and killed a 27-year-old man while responding to a call.
Protesters in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, gather at the scene where a police officer shot and killed a 27-year-old man wielding a knife.
The Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office, which is investigating the police shooting, said that officers responded on Sunday to a “reported domestic disturbance involving a person with a knife.”
Lancaster Police said in a news release that a 911 caller had reported that her brother was becoming aggressive with his mother and attempting to break into her house.
Body camera footage shows a family member at the door when the first officer arrives at the scene. The woman soon steps outside and a man, identified by authorities as Ricardo Munoz, runs out of the home toward the officer. The footage shows Munoz wielding a knife above his head, “in clear view, in a threatening manner,” the district attorney’s office said in a release.
The police officer fired several shots, ultimately killing Munoz. No one else was hit by gunfire, according to the district attorney’s office.
CNN has reached out to the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office for comment.
The investigation by the district attorney’s office is ongoing. The police department also said it was looking into whether officers followed all training guidelines and policies properly, according to their news release.
“This has been a heartbreaking day for our city,” Lancaster Mayor Danene Sorace said in a statement on Sunday. “I grieve for the loss of life and know that there are more questions to be answered as the investigation continues.”
Protesters gather at the police station
Demonstrators in Lancaster took to the streets following the shooting, which comes amid months of widespread protests across the nation over police brutality and systemic racism.
Lancaster police said they arrested eight individuals early Monday after demonstrators caused damage to the police station, a parked vehicle and a US Post Office building. Demonstrators also piled street signs, trash cans and other items into an intersection, at one point starting a dumpster fire, according to police.
Those arrested received charges including arson, institutional vandalism, riot, failure to disperse and obstructing highways and other public passages, police said.
Detectives are reviewing several hours of online video as well as surveillance in an effort to identify additional suspects, police later said.
Lancaster police said that more than 100 protesters had gathered on an access ramp outside the police station. Police also said they used a “public address system to provide several warnings that if the group did not move from the ramp that chemical munitions would be deployed.” The department said the group failed to follow instructions and that officers used chemical agents and pepper spray to disperse the crowd.
Police asked the public to continue to avoid the area.
“Any loss of life, regardless of how it happens, is devastating,” Lancaster city police chief Jarrad Berkihiser said during a news conference on Sunday.
“We need the community to come together and we want the community to stay calm, stay at peace, and allow this process to play out.”
Before the crowd dispersal and property damage on Monday, a peaceful crowd had formed at the scene of the shooting on Sunday, Berkihiser said. He added that community stakeholders and clergy members within the crowd were trying to maintain calm.
The Lancaster District Attorney’s Office asked in a tweet on Sunday that protests remain peaceful “as violence and destruction of property will become headlines and serve no purpose for the safety and wellbeing of our citizens and neighborhoods.”
The city of Lancaster is not primarily Amish
Some social media users criticized the protests in Lancaster and claimed that protests had spread from larger cities to remote areas such as “Amish Country”—an incorrect characterization of the city of Lancaster itself.
Lancaster, the seat of Lancaster County, is home to about 59,265 residents and is racially diverse, according to the latest Census figures. The population is about 40% White (non-Hispanic or Latino), 39% Hispanic or Latino and 18% Black.
Amish families and communities generally live and work in more rural areas throughout Lancaster County, according to according to Lancaster County’s tourism bureau. A 2017 study from Elizabethtown College estimated that about 74,250 Amish live in Pennsylvania.
CNN’s Mirna Alsharif and Natalie Andes contributed to this report.
